Red Army
The Red Army was the armed force first organized by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War in 1918 and that, in 1922, became the army of the Soviet Union. "Red," a symbol of communism, refers to the blood shed by the working class in its struggle against capitalism. Red Army in "Black Tulip" During the Soviet war in Afghanistan, soldiers of the Red Army marched toward the town of Bulola, expecting to overcome the relatively less advanced Mujahideen. They hadn't reckoned on awakening a sleeping dragon. Red Army in Days of Infamy The Red Army scored its first major victory over the Germans in early December of 1941 when it defeated the ''Wehrmacht'' outside of Moscow and pushed them back from the capital. However, news of this success was largely ignored in the US as the Japanese conquered Hawaii, the key to the Pacific Ocean. After the first attempt to take Hawaii failed, the Red Army was fighting the Germans again, this time as they pushed into the Caucasus and Stalingrad. The Red Army fought furiously to hold the city, and in the winter of 1942, launched an offensive that encircled the Germans and retook the city. However, although the defeat had been disastrous for the Germans, they were far from beaten proving that they were still a dangerous threat to the Red Army. Red Army in The Hot War Just a few years after its extremely costly triumph over the Nazis, the Red Army went into action again. As the Korean War escalated into World War III beginning in 1951 and 1952, the Red Army moved in to battle the Americans and their allies in the West. A new automatic rifle, the AK-47, had been adopted for use a few years prior, and Red Army soldiers and their enemies alike were impressed with it. The AK-47's only real flaw was that the Red Army did not have enough of them, but the Western armies had nothing that could match its unique blend of a large detachable magazine, semi and fully-automatic fire, and an intermediate-sized rifle cartridge. The Red Army went on the offensive in Europe, pushing steadily west at the price of heavy casualties. In the latter half of 1951, however, NATO launched a determined counteroffensive, steadily retaking territory from the Red Army. Paderborn, West Germany became the site of a fierce battle as the Red Army repeatedly tried to take it back from NATO. Problems with restless and unreliable allies in Hungary and Czechoslovakia meant the Red Army gradually stalled, too strong to lose Eastern Europe yet too weak to decisively move West. Red Army in ''In the Presence of Mine Enemies'' The Red Army had been defeated by the ''Wehrmacht'' during Operation Barbarossa. A number of tanks captured from the Red Army were displayed in the Soldier's Hall. Red Army in ''Joe Steele'' When Hitler opened up Operation: Barbarossa, President Joe Steele waited six weeks before shipping guns and trucks to the Soviet Union for the Red Army. However the delay nearly proved disastrous as the Germans drove on Moscow and almost captured the city; they were defeated. The Red Army was again beaten back to the city of Trotskygrad where they destroyed an entire German Army. After their victory the Red Army stormed west, but the German Army was far from beaten. As the war progressed, Soviet Leader Leon Trotsky kept calling for a second front to take the pressure off the Red Army, but it wasn't until later in the war that Joe Steele realized that the Red Army was going to win. After Operation: Overlord, the combined Red Army and Allied Armies smashed Germany between them. After the U.S. invaded Japan, Trotsky wanted a piece of the Japanese pie and ordered the Red Army to invade too. They did and the island was successfully conquered and divided in two portions between the U.S. and the USSR. Red Army in "The Last Article" The Red Army had been beaten by the ''Wehrmacht'' during Operation Barbarossa and finally, surrendered at Kuibishev. Towards the end of the fighting, the Red Army had fought with almost suicidal zeal, leaving many Germans who had battled against them with lasting memories. Although defeated, many Red Army veterans became partisans, and were still fighting against the Axis when the Wehrmacht marched into India in 1947. Red Army in The Man With the Iron Heart The Red Army was the largest and most powerful army in the world at the time of Nazi Germany's defeat in May 1945. Its millions of soldiers had taken extremely heavy losses but also utterly destroyed the bulk of the fighting forces of the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, and Waffen-SS, contributing immensely to the Allies' victory in World War II. With even last-ditch forces like the Volkssturm and Hitler Jugend crushed beneath the treads of Soviet tanks, the Red Army assumed they had broken their enemy and secured the Soviet Union's dominion over their half of Germany. The opposite soon proved true, thanks to Reinhard Heydrich's relentless efforts during the war to organize the German Freedom Front. Made up of old men, young boys, and hardened combat veterans- all three possessing a high degree of ideological fervor and motivation- the GFF struck the Red Army mercilessly. They wasted no time targeting some of its greatest heroes and strategists, assassinating Marshal Ivan Koniev and Marshal Georgy Zhukov. The GFF also infiltrated a New Year's party in December 1945, poisoning many of the drinks with wood alcohol. Ignoring the danger signs thus far and still riding high on the thrill of total victory, dozens of Red Army officers drank heavily and died painfully. The Red Army quickly brought in the NKVD to investigate, and unlike the U.S. Army was extremely brutal in its treatment of the German civilian populace. Thanks to a decades-old mutual dislike and distrust between themselves and the Western powers, the Red Army hesitated to cooperate with the Americans, British or French, a decision that only benefited the GFF. Only the French, hungry for revenge after years of humiliation and defeat, battled the GFF as fearlessly and ruthlessly as the Red Army. In keeping with the overall Soviet doctrine of accomplishing the goal regardless of the cost, the Red Army refused to be intimidated by Nazi terror tactics. They fired a howitzer at the first airliner hijacked in Soviet territory and charged it with infantry, killing the hijackers with "acceptable losses" to the hostages and Red Army soldiers. As the Red Army answered to a dictator, the opinions of its men meant nothing, so the problems created by the draftee and civilian protests on the American side never existed for them. By 1948, Red Army settled in to occupy its section of Germany permanently, retaliating swiftly and mercilessly against any GFF attack, but privately some officers admitted it would be a hard occupation. Red Army in "The Phantom Tolbukhin" The Red Army was defeated by the ''Wehrmacht'' during Operation Barbarossa in 1941, due in part to Joseph Stalin's purges which had killed its generals, including Ivan Koniev and Georgy Zhukov, before the war. Despite this defeat, soldiers of the Fourth Ukrainian Front still continued a guerrilla war against the Germans in 1947 under the command of General Fedor Tolbukhin. Red Army in The War That Came Early Although the Soviet Union joined the 1938 war against Germany, the Red Army was not fully deployed. Some troops were allocated to defend Czechoslovakia, but it was the Soviet Air Force who carried most of the burden. This was because the Soviet Union was separated from Czechoslovakia by Poland and Romania, two countries the USSR had made territorial claims against and which would have declared for the Axis had the USSR crossed their territory without their permission. Czechoslovakia fell by November 1938. As an official state of war continued to exist between the USSR and Germany, well into 1939, when the Soviet Union finally deployed the Red Army into Poland, claiming that Poland had interfered with the Soviet Union, and that the Polish government had persecuted ethnic Russians in its borders. Poland engaged the Red Army, and invited German forces to assist. Red Army in Worldwar During much of World War II, the war against the Race's Conquest Fleet, and the Colonization period, the Red Army was commanded by Marshal Georgy Zhukov. Until the unexpected arrival of the alien invaders, the Red Army was engaged in a fierce war of mutual hatred against the German armed forces, in which little quarter was asked for or given. The vastly-superior technology and firepower of the Race left both the Germans and the Soviets] with few choices, however, and so a cease-fire was called. Thereafter, the Red Army worked along remnants of the German ''Wehrmacht'' to fight the Race forces, using the Soviet Union's vast land area to constantly outflank the enemy. The Red Army fought ferociously despite taking even heavier losses against the "Lizards" than it had against the Germans. Its greatest advantage by far was the weakness of Race fighting doctrine: the Red Army had changed and adapted immensely in just one year in response to the German invasion, whereas the Race used clumsy and inefficient tactics that had not been revised once in a thousand years. When the Race prepared for its invasion of Britain, it withdrew a majority of its units from both Germany and the USSR, allowing the Red Army to prepare more defenses for when the depleted Race forces returned. The Red Army was able to inflict enough defeats on the alien invaders that they, like the Germans before them, were forced to leave and recognize the USSR's independence at the peace conference in Cairo. In the years after the war, Poland remained occupied by the Race, permanently denying that country its former independence but also giving the Red Army a convenient buffer state between them and Nazi Germany. General Secretary Vyacheslav Molotov relied on the Red Army both for the protection of the USSR's territorial integrity and, to some extent, the nation's internal security. The latter was especially true in the early 1960s when Molotov had to purge the NKVD of agents who had supported Lavrenty Beria's coup against him. Throughout, Molotov was uncomfortable with his reliance on the Red Army; he considered them, and their leader, Marshal Zhukov, as likely as the NKVD to attempt to overthrow him. When the NKVD and Red Army were equally suspect, he played the two against each other; when the Red Army saved him from the NKVD, he had no choice but to support it over its rival organization, which put him in a very vulnerable position indeed. However, the Red Army never did attempt to replace the government, certainly not during Molotov's lifetime. Category:Military Branches Category:Soviet Union Category:Black Tulip Category:Days of Infamy Category:The Hot War Category:In the Presence of Mine Enemies Category:Joe Steele Category:The Last Article Category:The Man With the Iron Heart Category:The Phantom Tolbukhin Category:The War That Came Early Category:Worldwar